Introductions

Hi. I'd like to introduce you to Desolina. She's a 35ft Wauquiez Pretorien sailing yacht. Desolina was born in 1984 in France, before being shipped over to the United States at a young age. There she spent her childhood cruising the balmy waters off the Florida and California coastlines. A few years ago, she set sail across the Pacific Ocean for Australasia with her previous owner, who left her in New Zealand at the end of the journey. This is how we came to find her, berthed at Opua Marina whilst holidaying in Northland. 

At that time we had somewhat rudimentary knowledge and experience of sailing. We had been doing a little research on what features we would look for if we bought our own boat, but we felt we had no serious intentions to buy at that time - not until we had a little more experience under our belts at any rate! Well, as you'll have worked out from reading this post, we did in fact buy her (despite some misgivings), and had her delivered to Wellington where we were living at the time. 

Since then, we have spent 18 months getting to know Desolina, 12 of which we spent living on her in Chaffers Marina in Wellington. In that time we've made quite a few alterations and improvements to her. For a start, I wasn't going to agree to live on her until we had hot running water on board. Call me a princess if you like, but working full time and living on a boat you have to have a few little luxuries. 

Moving on board was a good way to gain our sea legs and test out the practicalities of living on a boat. Wellington is known for it's wind and oh boy we got some wind! Living on board at Chaffers Marina can be like boot camp for sailors. In the first couple of weeks living full time on Desolina, I suffered from land sickness and spent quite a few days sitting at my desk at work feeling as if I had vertigo. I still get sea sick (everyone does at some point), but I've definitely improved a lot from those early days. Spending a few nights in the Marina in 60kts of wind and those first few trips across the Cook Strait have set us in good stead.

So after a year of living on board full time in Wellington, endless boat maintenance and upgrades and trying to squeeze in trips over long weekends, we have finally set sail on an extended tour of New Zealand.